Inside the Star

How Brian Burke intends to build a winner

Leafs GM Brian Burke opens up to the Star’s Paul Hunter about his approach to rebuilding the franchise, his outside influences and why Tomas Kaberle remains an asset, even if he walks for nothing at season’s end.

Call it the Brian Burke Method, the plan to make the Maple Leafs a respected contender once again. Burke’s approach hasn’t changed much since he was part of a belligerent Maine Mariners squad that won the Calder Cup as AHL champs in 1978, or since he was a young general manager in Hartford seeking advice from the legendary Bill Torrey.

“The most important decision a GM makes is who coaches the team. I’m fortunate that we had a great coach in place here. That’s truly where it all begins and ends. It doesn’t matter how many good players you give the guy if he can’t coach. Then my philosophy is real simple, which is build from the net out … if you don’t have goaltending you can’t win.”

“The second most important position is defence. I’ve always spent more money and more effort on defence than any other position. I think it’s like pitching in baseball. You can have eight all-stars, eight Hall of Famers in the field, and if they’re not behind a pitching staff that’s competent, they’re not going to win.”

“Everyone thinks I was a defenceman because I’m big and my statistics were very poor. I was a forward. If you look at Stanley Cup winners in general, their defence corps was solid, if not spectacular.”

“Then, the rest of it for me is, we want to have a certain attitude. We want to play an entertaining style. We don’t trap. We pursue the puck in all three zones. We hit in all three zones. We fight. And we try to score a lot of goals. We’re not afraid to trade chances because our D is good because our goaltending is good, we’re not afraid to trade chances, which leads to an entertaining hockey game.”

“Then we go top six, bottom six. The top six are my skill guys, my speed and my first power play. Then the bottom six are the hard-hat guys. The blue collar guys, the lunch pail guys. Use whatever analogy you want. These are the guys who do the unglamorous jobs that are necessary to win a hockey game, kill penalties, block shots, win faceoffs, basically they’re the grunts but you can’t win a championship without grunts that are proficient.”

“My teams play a style that’s designed to entertain. I am in the entertainment business and I think star power is important. If you look, everywhere I’ve gone I’ve always had star players and I’ve always had a stud on defence. So with (Dion) Phaneuf, I think people would have seen that one coming because I’ve always had a stud back there. But as far as Phil Kessel, I’ve always had a star up front too. I do believe in terms of generating interest in selling tickets, you do need to have a star player so there’s no coincidence that Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf are here.”

“I think the draft is critical to rebuilding, don’t get me wrong. You look at this year’s draft, without a first (round pick), I think we really did a good job putting assets in the cupboard. I think our scouts did a great job. So I’m not downplaying the draft, the draft is vital. I don’t intend to keep trading first-round picks. We felt we needed to do that to add Phil Kessel and we felt we had the ability to do it because of the other free agents we had signed. I don’t intend to keep doing that. I think long-term successful teams keep their picks and draft.”

“I’ve never consciously said, let’s have an M.O. Let’s have something the writers can say, this is what he does. I would say, I’ve always given my players a chance. I’ve never come in and blown the team up right away. I’ve always given the players a chance. Second thing is, I’m not a big trade deadline guy. If I’m in contention, I try to add small pieces at the deadline. I like my team to get together earlier in the season. I do place great value on belligerence. I think if two teams are otherwise equal, the tougher team is always going to win. And I do believe in treating players fairly. We have a different Christmas trade deadline here. I think we’re very honest with our players here. I think the players here are treated fairly and know they’re treated fairly so that’s it, that’s my philosophy.”

“My whole philosophy of building teams, I owe to Bill Torrey (legendary Islanders GM). After we won (in Anaheim), I called him and thanked him. I asked him once, you won four straight Cups — people can argue that might have been one of the greatest teams ever — I’m a young GM, can you educate me on this? He said, it’s very simple. You have to win four playoff series to win a Stanley Cup, 16 games. He said, your whole team should be built for 16 games. He said, in the course of those four series, you’re going to play a big team. You’re going to play a really fast team. You’re going to play a team that relies on special teams, more like a trap team might in Jersey, a team that has great special teams. Then you’re going to see a hybrid of one of them. In no particular sequence. You’ve got to be big enough to beat the big team. Quick enough to beat the speed team. Special teams have to be good so you need power play specialists and PK specialists. Then, the hybrid, you need a blend of all it. And goaltending, obviously they had great goaltending.”

“I evolved it with Bob Murray and Dave Nonis over time to be even more tightly defined. And someone will come along after me and define it even more … but, to me, it’s top six, bottom six and top four, bottom two on the D. That’s what I’ve used since I got to Hartford. I never elucidated it there. I never talked to the media about the blueprint there but that’s clearly the way I thought we were going to go. As a rookie GM, you don’t want to be making bold statements about how you build a team. It’s your first day on the job, you keep your mouth shut.”

“I tell the team this when we go to training camp. We actually talk about this analogy. I tell them, you go to the symphony and in the front row is the first violin and she’s elegant. She’s got a beautiful long dress on and there’s a spotlight on. She’s got nice earrings and everyone came to listen to her. But there’s a guy built like me in the back row blowing on a tuba. They don’t start till they both sit down. Now she’s going to make a lot more money than I do. She’s probably going to have a longer career than I have. But if we’re going to get picked up and put on a record label, they need me too.”

“Then after we all leave, someone cleans up the hall and moves the chairs back. So there’s a job for everyone. A successful organization has to have contributions at every level.”

“You go by a job site. There’s a guy digging a ditch, a guy pounding nails, a guy stringing wire and a guy welding pipe. Four different jobs, four different pay scales but the building doesn’t go up unless every one of them shows up for work. It’s the same thing I tell our players. If you’re a fourth-line guy, if you’re Colton Orr, you have great value on our team. If you’re a third-line guy who kills penalties, takes faceoffs, blocks shots, you have great value on our team. There’s a spot for you on this team. Everyone is valuable. Everyone is important. But you’ve got to be able to do one of those jobs. You’re no good to me unless you’re a top six or a bottom six. If you’re not good enough to be a top six, you’d better bring some sandpaper or a skill specialty or some courage to it. Like a Freddie Sjostrom is an important player on our team because he can kill penalties and he’s fearless blocking shots and he’s got character. That’s an underlying thing to all of this. I want people with character.”

“I’ve been fortunate, I’ve had two great mentors in hockey. Lou Lamoriello who I played for (at Providence College) and Pat Quinn who I worked for the first time (at Vancouver). This isn’t self-learned. I worked for two giants. The other guy who was a great influence in my professional career was Gary Bettman but that was on the business side. Between those two guys, Lou and Pat, I didn’t have to pick up a book and learn hockey all on my own. I had two great teachers.”

“Are there things I thought were true that aren’t true now? I don’t think so. I played on a championship team (Maine Mariners, the Flyers’ affiliate) in the American league. I played a very minor role on that team. I’ll make that disclaimer up front. But we had all the elements. Keith Allen was the GM of the Flyers at that time. We had an excellent coach; we had great team toughness. We had clear special teams guys who were terrific. We had the MVP of the league that year (Blake Dunlop), we had the best defenceman in the league that year (Terry Murray) but we also had grunts that killed penalties and blocked shots.”

“That’s where it started. I remember thinking, we played the Nova Scotia Voyageurs in the second round, and I remember talking to Dennis Patterson who was our captain — he now scouts for the Flyers — and I remember saying, if we beat these guys, we’re going to steamroll New Haven. That’s who we played in the finals. We beat then 4-1 because we were so much bigger and so much tougher. We matched their skill and we were much more belligerent. Lessons learned.”

The conversation continues on Sunday, as Burke talks about star power, the salary cap, and who he goes to for advice.

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